What Do You Two Think?
by TigerLilyBulb
Summary: The Determination experiments were Gaster's project, as well as the idea to study the flow of time, but when an experiment goes awry and his mere memory is completely erased, it's the ones left standing in his place that take the blame.


**AN: The following is my best attempt at the Gaster mythos, and I'm very excited to write it since I've had the idea for it since I first played Undertale. I'm not sure how many chapters it will be yet, but I hope to update at least once a week. That being said, I'm very excited about this story and hope you enjoy reading it as much as I do writing it :)**

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Chapter One - Lackluster

Alphys nervously fiddled with the buttons on her lab coat as she got into the elevator with the short, smiling skeleton. While they were both assistants to Dr. Gaster, she didn't know much about him - in fact even his name was escaping her - since they had both been working on completely different projects since she got hired. It wasn't exactly the type of job that encouraged her mingling with her coworkers - she had been practically working alone since she started.

"Good morning, Dr. Alphys." The skeleton grinned. It was still strange to her to be called doctor, she had just barely earned her degree, and here she was, working with the Royal Scientist.

"Good morning. Uh-"

"Forgot my name again?"

"Y-yeah. Sorry." Names had never been her strong suit. She would probably forget Dr. Gaster's name too if she hadn't idolized him all through secondary school and college. She still couldn't believe she worked with him.

It was certainly different than she expected.

"The Legendary Fartmaster, at your service." He took a little bow, and Alphys couldn't help but giggle.

"I feel like that's not your real name."

"Well it is until you remember." He winked, and the elevator dinged, stopping in the basement of Dr. Gaster's Hotland home and laboratory.

The main hallway was brightly lit, and decorated only by blueprints of Dr. Gaster's successful experiments, including the intimidating "Gaster Blasters" that he used as home security. Alphys had forgotten her name badge her second day on the job, and she wouldn't soon forget her run in with the skull shaped terrors.

"Yo, Dings, where you at?" The short skeleton called as he walked down the hallway, and Alphys was slightly jealous of the casual way that he referred to the famous scientist. She was also concerned as to why he was speaking aloud when Dr. Gaster was very deaf, but she decided not to question it.

Instead, she turned down the hallway that would lead her to the DT extractor (they were done with that part of the experiment, but it still unnerved her), as well as their current test subjects - five canine monsters that had 'fallen down' when a rogue human had roamed through Snowdin - it had been the first human in more than fifty years and while Alphys hadn't gotten a glimpse of their body being taken into the Palace, she was certain they were a terrifying creature. Dr. Gaster was also quite certain that there would be more fallen monster brought to them in the meantime.

Alphys didn't want to admit it, but the cold way that he regarded their test subjects and the prospect of more was almost too much for her sometimes.

Having carded herself in to the rooms holding her experiment, she checked over her report from the day before - there was a couple things underlined and some notes in the corner in a language she was still learning to read - before going to check on the dogs.

Their states hadn't changed from the day before, the monitors beside each of them showing that the reverberations of their souls were close to stopping altogether. Still, Alphys whispered encouragement to each of them as she gave them their morning dose of DT, hoping that the deep red fluid was what it took to bring their souls back.

She knew Dr. Gaster meant to harvest their strengthened souls, rather than bring the monsters back to life, for the next part of the experiment, but she couldn't help but hope that he would change his mind. If it could be done, those dogs were meant to live and fetch again, and not for their souls to be used and abused by their scientific intent.

But this was about breaking the barrier, right? She kept trying to remind herself of this but it almost didn't feel worth it. But if they could get a monster soul to behave like a human soul, then no more souls, human or monster, would need to be sacrificed. They wouldn't have to wait for three more humans to fall and fight their way through the royal guard. Her best friend Undyne could stop having nightmares about -

"Having daydreams of grandeur again?" A grating voice rattled in her skull - destroying any semblance of coherent thought that had come before it - and she turned sheepishly to face her idol. Her idol that she really wished would stop using the magical version of his sign language on her poor head, it ached so terribly every time he did that. Of course, she could hardly understand him without the disembodied voice in her ear, but she was trying her best and that had to count for something.

She stopped herself mid spoken response and switched immediately to signing - she was still clumsy but she got the point across that she was just feeling hopeful about the experiment.

"We all are, at first." The scientist both signed and reverberated in her skull. He looked so tired, like he hadn't slept since the barrier was erected. "Still. I believe you will have more subjects to check in today. I expect a full report on all of them."

She managed to sign a passable 'Yes, Sir.' It was what she had signed the most since she started this job, after all, but the scientist barely stayed long enough to see her response before leaving her to his dirty work.

She had really expected this job to be different. She hadn't expected grandeur by any means, she was a lab assistant, not a full-fledged scientist, after all - but sitting alone in a lab that felt more like a hospital wing, watching subjects that she was certain that she would soon watch turn to dust - this didn't feel like what she had spent her whole life working towards.

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After carding himself in, Sans took his sweet time flipping through his lab notes from the day before - there was a red stain sticking the third and fourth pages together from his lunch yesterday - before he even looked at the machine. It still needed a name. Sans was certain, of course, that Gaster would name it after himself like he did most of his inventions, but he supposed with the ego came the naming rights.

Until then, it was the machine, and it was quite a machine. Or it would be, if they could ever get it to work. There had been issues in the beginning with getting the correct materials for it, and then figuring out how to meld Determination some of the implements and circuitry - thankfully, whatever the old scientist had his new recruit working on involved a lot of DT, so they had plenty to work with. The current problem, however, was powering it. The original problem was diverting enough energy from the core, but now the cursed thing kept overheating and blowing fuses all over the place.

It seemed like the entire universe was against the creation of this machine, and Sans was exhausted with it. After his last big project of helping Gaster update the core, he had asked for an easy project. Some light paperwork, maybe babysitting a sleep study or something easy. But it looked like Alphys had something like that, while he was stuck mechanic-ing. __Again__.

His notes read over and Gaster's awful handwriting deciphered, it was time for a break. He meandered down the hall to the snack machine, to see a small group of monsters being carried in on gurneys and stretchers. They seemed to be sleeping. It also seemed like the new girl did get the easy job he had been promised, when Sans realized that one of them, Stella Snowdrake, was a monster he recognized.

Except, she had fallen down a couple days ago. What was she doing here, instead of in the hospital, or with her family, where she belonged?

Sans had seen Gaster attempt to thwart death once before, and it seemed he hadn't learned anything from the last time. Which explained why Sans wasn't assigned to that project.

Still, that was a hell of a way to break in a newbie. Messing around with dying souls. Sans didn't think she'd last the month.

"Hey. Um. F-fartmaster?" Alphys called to him as he walked down the hall with his soda and popato chisps.

He couldn't help but snicker a little, she was actually calling him that. "You rang?" He grinned as he turned around.

"Could you just tell me your real name?"

"Uh, I could, but then you'll never know the limits of your memory." Not to mention the limits of how long this could go on.

She sighed. "Right. Um, could you help me with something?"

"Your subjects getting unruly?" Man that was a dark joke. This place was really getting to him.

"I wish." She looked tired, the kind of tired that sleep didn't fix. Old Man Dings sure was rough on assistants. "One of them is a little too heavy for me to move on my own." And of course, the good doctor himself was nowhere to be seen. Probably sulking in his office about how no one understood his intelligence.

"Alright, but you'll owe me a favor."

"Can it involve switching projects with me?" She said as she lead him into the room. It looked and felt like a strange bastardization of a hospital, and if Sans had nerves, his would be shaky. "This is. I mean. What are you working on?"

"I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." Was his project classified? Probably. He couldn't even begin to explain it if it wasn't. Other than the fact that it seemed to be a wash at every turn.

"Of course." She really needed to stop taking him so seriously. "S-Sorry. Anyway." She gestured to an Aaron on the gurney next to one of the beds. "I can't lift him on my own and I don't want to hurt him."

Sans was certain that the lethal injury under the bandages on the fallen monster's chest probably hurt him a whole lot more than any attempt to move him would, but Sans was still as gentle with his magic as possible. Blue magic sure came in handy, basically kinetic energy incarnate, it could do just about anything - in fact he had been working on a side project about manipulating the effect of gravity when Gaster had gotten another one of his harebrained ideas about the nature of time.

"Need anything else?" Sans asked, looking around the room. He was suddenly way more excited about his own project, this one was absolutely depressing. Sans was even considering hopping in the decontamination shower just to get the scent of death off of him.

"No, thank you. I just need to tend to their wounds now." She said timidly. "Uh, just let me know when you're cashing in that favor?"

Sans was not taking this one in. He had taken pity on the last one, and when they had taken a dive into the core following the absolute failure of their experiment, Sans had been devastated. He absolutely did __not__ have the energy to care for another one of Gaster's starry eyed recruits.

"How about you start with getting Grillby's with me after work?" __Dammit.__

"Grillby's? I- uh -"

"It's the bar in Snowdin, he makes the best burgers in the underground. Don't you dare tell me you haven't been." Was he seriously going to get to know this one? Gaster had them literally playing with death, the fact that they had survived this long was astounding.

"No, I have. It's just -" She stammered. "You're not asking me - I mean - if you are - I. __Well__."

It was really a miracle this one had survived so long, she was a wreck in general. "It's not a date. You just look like you haven't been out of the lab in days and I don't want to be around when you finally snap."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Usually."

"Good." She laughed nervously. "I'd like to go. Uh. With you, then. Thanks."

"No problem. Anyway, I'll catch you after work. I've got some circuits to rewire."

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 **I hope you enjoyed! Please be sure to review and tell me what you think!**

 **purrs,**

 **TigerLily**


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